Chefs and Cookbook Authors @ 2012 Miami Book Fair This Weekend

The Miami Book Fair International kicked off Sunday with what must have been an awkward conversation between famed author and journalist Tom Wolfe and former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.

People talk plenty of smack about South Florida, but we get one of the world's biggest book fairs one month and then the hemisphere's most important art fair in December. Not too shabby.

Along with the many political and literary bigwigs who will gather at Miami Dade College's downtown Miami campus, a handful of local and national chefs and food writers will be on hand to discuss their latest cookbooks, and perhaps offer some last minute Thanksgiving dinner saving tips.

All following events will be held at in Miami Dade College's Building 6, 1st Floor, on N. 2nd Ave. between 4th and 5th streets.

By 12:30 p.m. we'll be off the health kick and back to Miami's Latin roots with Marciel E. Presilla and Raquel Rabade Roque. Presilla wrote Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America with more than 500 recipes from here three decades of travel across the continent. Roque is the author of The Cuban Kitchen, with hundreds of homestyle recipes.

At 2 p.m. local culinary heroes Norman and Justin Van Aken will discuss their book My Key West Kitchen: Recipes and Stories.

By the time 3:30 p.m. rolls around you might be ready for a couple of coffee, perhaps even a Five Hour Energy, don't do it. Instead drift off into a food-induced coma thanks for Michael Genuine Food & Drink's pastry chef Hedy Goldsmith, who'll discuss her debut cookbook Baking Out Loud and Alex Hitz, who melds French haute cuisine and Southern Hospitality in his Atlanta restaurant and in My Beverly Hills Kitchen: Classic Southern Cooking with a French Twist.

Sunday, Nov. 18.

All the food talk doesn't start until noon, which leaves plenty of time for an early morning workout, and perhaps a hearty breakfast to cancel it out. Heather McPherson will discuss Recipes Celebrating Florida, Liz Gutman and Jen King will help get you your sugar high at home with The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook and Yvan Lemoine will discuss Comidas USA.

The 2 p.m. session will take you on a world tour with Japanese chef/consultant Hiroko Shimbo, author of Hiroko's American Kitchen. She'll speak along former Next Iron Chef Contest and Mugaritz alumnus Seamus Mull, author of Hero Foods, and Norman Van Aken will wrap things up in Key West with his My Key West Kitchen.